Also take note of his ’70s porn pose with his wife, who appears in just the first few seconds of the ad and stays completely silent — AS A WOMAN SHOULD. AMIRITE????

We’re not going to challenge the logic of James’ registration plan, but we do have to ask: What the fuck does being a businessman have to do with keeping families safe?

And what’s with all the meaningful pauses? We know you have to fill 30 seconds of screen time but you come off like a guy who can’t remember his lines. MAYBE TIM JAMES NEEDS A TELEPROMPTER LIKE THAT COMMIE IN THE WHITE HOUSE. BANG! ZOOM!

We reported last week that insane nutjob and total racist asshole Lt. Col. Terrance Lakin was facing court martial for refusing to obey orders issued by Barack Obama. You know, because Obama’s a dirty Kenyan Negro Muslim interloper trying to bring the country down.

Wait! He’s not! But Lakin thinks he is. So Lakin didn’t follow orders, and now he’s been charged.

Good. Here’s the breakdown, via TPM:

Lakin was charged Thursday “with one specification of a violation of Article 87, Missing Movement and four specifications of a violation of Article 92 (three specifications of Failure to Obey a Lawful Order, and one Specification of Dereliction of Duty),” said Chuck Dasey, spokesman at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where Lakin is assigned.

The court martial is likely to raise the prominence of what is already a cause célèbre among Birther adherents.

Late last month, Lakin released a YouTube video in which he explained that he would not report for a second tour in Afghanistan until Obama proves he is a citizen. A couple of weeks later, the Army announced he was under investigation.

Of course, Lakin thinks he’s a hero, and released this statement through another group of racist assholes.

I invited my court martial, and today I stand ready to answer these charges. I was prepared to deploy if only the President would authorize the release of the proof of his eligibility. He refused, and now the court will determine the issue, and my fate. The constitution matters. The truth matters,” he said.

Here’s a truth that matters: You’re going to do time for failure to obey lawful orders, Lt. Col. Lakin! Yes, you’re going in for all day, and Barack Obama’s still going to be president. Congratulations on choosing to stand up for a movement that’s been proved a) wrong, and b) nuts.

First: We’ve seen their signs and heard them speak and wonder just what degrees they could possibly hold.

Second: Go fuck yourselves, teabaggers.

But just for shits and giggles, let’s discuss their corporate sponsored document!

We, the undersigned, call upon those seeking to represent us in public office to sign the Contract from America and by doing so commit to support each of its agenda items, work to bring each agenda item to a vote during the first year, and pledge to advocate on behalf of individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.

Know what? There’s nothing inherently insane in that paragraph. Unless you count the fact that most of the things they’re asking for are fucking stupid.

Individual Liberty

Our moral, political, and economic liberties are inherent, not granted by our government. It is essential to the practice of these liberties that we be free from restriction over our peaceful political expression and free from excessive control over our economic choices.

A gripe against the health care purchase mandate, though veiled here. No surprise.

Limited Government

The purpose of our government is to exercise only those limited powers that have been relinquished to it by the people, chief among these being the protection of our liberties by administering justice and ensuring our safety from threats arising inside or outside our country’s sovereign borders. When our government ventures beyond these functions and attempts to increase its power over the marketplace and the economic decisions of individuals, our liberties are diminished and the probability of corruption, internal strife, economic depression, and poverty increases.

You’ll find lots of people with lots of different ideas about what government is or is not. Exactly how the government is increasing its power in the marketplace, we’re not sure, and of course the teabaggers are not specific here.

Economic Freedom

The most powerful, proven instrument of material and social progress is the free market. The market economy, driven by the accumulated expressions of individual economic choices, is the only economic system that preserves and enhances individual liberty. Any other economic system, regardless of its intended pragmatic benefits, undermines our fundamental rights as free people.

The free market also has the power to destroy the lives of many of its country’s citizens, but why let a little thing like regulating derivatives stop the free market? Just how many teabaggers are actually voting against their own self interests? Let’s start with Joe the Plumber.

1. Protect the Constitution

Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does. (82.03%)

Grow up.

2. Reject Cap & Trade

Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nation’s global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures. (72.20%)

Prove that Cap & Trade does any of those things, and we’re on board.

3. Demand a Balanced Budget

Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax hike. (69.69%)

Really? You want Medicare and Social Security but you don’t want to pay for them? Is that what we’re hearing? Check out this Boston Globe article if you think we’re being reductive.

While we’re at it, since teabaggers didn’t voice gripes when we went to war in Iraq – which we couldn’t pay for, by the way – we can only assume that you’ll be approving the tax hike to pay for it. Right?

4. Enact Fundamental Tax Reform

Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words—the length of the original Constitution. (64.90%)

Syntax alert! The word “original” before the word “Constitution” is totally unnecessary because there’s only one Constitution. In fact, that’s why we capitalize it! The Articles of Confederation were a constitution, but since they didn’t work and there’s no one claiming that we would have been better with the Articles, there’s no reason to call the Constitution “original.” It’s just the Constitution.

Further: Teabaggers are idiots. Say we cap federal income tax at 13%. Person A makes $27,000 and therefore must pay $3,510 in federal income tax. Person B makes $1,270,000 a year. That person would owe $165,100 in income tax. Call me crazy, but I think Person A needs his $3,510 more than Person B needs his $165,100. Not saying Person A should be off the hook entirely. Just sayin’

Oh, just saying teabaggers are heartless assholes.

5. Restore Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government in Washington

Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in a complete audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities, or ripe for wholesale reform or elimination due to our efforts to restore limited government consistent with the US Constitution’s meaning. (63.37%)

We’re all for reducing the size of government. Thanks for enlarging it, George W. Bush! If someone can find a way to govern 307,000,000 people while reducing the size of the government and making it more efficient, rock ‘n’ roll. Our suggestion: Hire Jack Welch to do the audit. Of course, his fee and the fees of the people performing the audit will raise the debt by millions and perhaps billions of dollars, but you have to spend to cut sometimes.

6. End Runaway Government Spending

Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth. (56.57%)

Also, demand the president have Congress declare war before, say, invading Iraq with no plan to contain costs or abruptly end soldiers’ lives needlessly.

Define “growth.” Also, look into the future and see when the next financial crisis is going to happen so that no one can authorize a TARP-like bill that dishes out taxpayer money that hasn’t been collected.

7. Defund, Repeal, & Replace Government-run Health Care

Defund, repeal and replace the recently passed government-run health care with a system that actually makes health care and insurance more affordable by enabling a competitive, open, and transparent free-market health care and health insurance system that isn’t restricted by state boundaries. (56.39%)

“Defund” isn’t a word. This idea would be great, by the way, if there were government-run health care. Unless the teabaggers are talking about Medicare and Medicaid, which we assume they now want repealed.

8. Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above” Energy Policy

Authorize the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation, lowering prices and creating competition and jobs. (55.51%)

Vague. So, so, so vague. Explain, please.

9. Stop the Pork

Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark. (55.47%)

Since earmarks make up about 1% of the budget, they really aren’t a big problem. They’re more of a political problem than a fiscal problem. But since teabaggers seem to focus on the money that goes into them – and 1% of trillions of dollars is nothing to sneeze at – we can really focus attention elsewhere.

10. Stop the Tax Hikes

Permanently repeal all tax hikes, including those to the income, capital gains, and death taxes, currently scheduled to begin in 2011. (53.38%)

How can you permanently repeal a tax hike if you also want to approve tax hikes with a two-thirds vote? (See #3.) THINK.

Ninety-five percent of American got a tax cut in 2009. That’s more Americans than Bush’s tax cuts ever benefited. And since the tax hikes the teabaggers are referring to will happen when Bush’s tax cuts expire, they can’t really blame Obama for that. But they will.

So that’s what we think of the Contract from America. But here’s what we dislike most: The fake signature at the bottom of it is from the America People.

We at SCFOM are Americans. Born and raised. We work. We pay taxes. We put up with teabaggers and their John Galt nonsense every day. They’ve gone too far this time. Kindly remove “The American People” from the signature line, or at least amend it to “The American People, except for Dave and Josh.”

We can’t speak for the rest of the country.

Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser in Miami Thursday night, the president touted tax cuts in the stimulus measure and the fact that the tax rate has not been increased for those making less than $250,000 a year.

“So I’ve been amused in recent days by these people having rallies,” he told the crowd at the fundraiser to laughter. “I think they should be saying thank you.”

Right. He said, “I’ve been amused,” etc. “[T]hey should be saying thank you,” etc.

But what he really means is: You’re stupid. You’re so, so stupid. I can’t believe how stupid you teabaggers are. Suck it. SUCK. IT.

But he’s the president, and he can’t really say that, so it came out as, “Thank you.” Po-ta-to, po-tah-to, you know?

So the awesome thing that happened is that there’s a story in the Dayton Daily News about a teabagger. Here’s the first sentence, and we swear we’re not making this up:

City police are still looking for Springboro Tea Party founder Brian “Sonny” Thomas who is wanted for violating a temporary protection order.

Wow. This story is about a teabagger — you know, the people who hate Barack Obama but also love balls in their faces — who violated a TPO. And TPOs only happen under threat of violence. AND this guy has a nickname: “Sonny.” We’ve only met one other Sonny* in our lives and he’s a fucking idiot! Zoot gleeb, this story is off to a ballbusting start. Continuing:

Thomas, 37, of 149 N. Main St., Springboro, recently created a firestorm after posting racist remarks on his group’s Twitter account. Now he is facing a first-degree misdemeanor charge after he went to the home of the woman who is the mother of this son.

Whoa! Whoa! A racist teabagger? You must be shitting me.

Alana Turner, 36, called police to report Thomas was there and there was a protection order against him being near her. The protection was issued Dec. 30 by the Warren County Domestic Relations Court.

We don’t want to cross any ethical lines by suggesting that Thomas is a child-abusing or girlfriend-abusing prick, but the protection was issued in a domestic relations court. Taking a page from Fox News, decide for yourself what that means.

Thomas was organizing the Springboro Tea Party’s second rally when a racist comment on the group’s Twitter page prompted local and statewide candidates to distance themselves from his group, while maintaining support for the national Tea Party movement.

Thomas said he texted the remark to the Web site in March while attending a health care rally in Washington, D.C., where he was heckled by supporters of amnesty for illegal immigrants.

“I take full responsibility for the action and it was not my intention to be insensitive. While it is never appropriate to make such a facetious comment, I hope that we can put this issue behind us for the greater good,” he said in the posting at www.
SpringboroTeaParty.com.

In other words, he’s going to keep his racism closeted from now on.

In a phone interview, Thomas denied ever bruising his son, as was alleged in a domestic violence child protection order, and emphasized his anger was focused on illegal immigrants and not legal American citizens with mixed heritage, like his son.

Apparently this guy’s hero is strident racist Strom “Do as I say, not as I do” Thurmond.

But the best part of this story isn’t the fact that the Dayton Daily News reported on this bigot teabagger. Nah, the best part is that they completely undermined their reporting by leaving in the worst typo we’ve ever seen in a daily newspaper.

Edit FAIL.

*This particular Sonny is self-named and the good people at the New York Post had the sense to leave out his dreadful nickname.

[h/t Wilson]

We’re not going to spend any time debunking the birther ideology because it’s been debukned countless times. We will say, though, that Lt. Col. Terry Lakin is racist, insane, and deserves to spend some time in prison for refusing a direct order from the Commander-in-Chief of the United States armed forces, the President of the United States, Barack Obama.

Per the U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 2, Clause I, the President “shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.”

Read the whole story at NBC News. There’s video of this nutjob after the jump.

Before we all go giving each other hand jobs over this piece of news, remember that we’re talking about Joe Lieberdouche and legislation. That means that he could support repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” on Monday and then change his mind Thursday. And don’t underestimate his love for John McCain in all this nonsense, either.

Now that we’ve shit in the salad, here’s what Droopy Dog actually said. From CNN’s Political Ticker:

I will be proud to be a sponsor of the important effort to enable patriotic gay Americans to defend our national security and our founding values of freedom and opportunity,” Lieberman said in a statement. “I have opposed the current policy of preventing gay Americans from openly serving in the military since its enactment in 1993.

“To exclude one group of Americans from serving in the armed forces is contrary to our fundamental principles as outlined in the Declaration of Independence and weakens our defenses by denying our military the service of a large group of Americans who can help our cause,” he said. “I am grateful for the leadership of President Obama to repeal the policy and the support of Secretary Gates and Chief of Staff Admiral Mullen.”

Then he said he needed a bowl of kibble, and retreated to his office for an afternoon nap.

Despite our first pangs of disbelief, we were pleased to read that Admiral Mike Mullen, the aforementioned chairman, along with defense secretary Robert Gates, admirably set Obama’s campaign pledge and State of the Union reiteration to repeal “Don’t ask, don’t tell” forward a couple clicks. This is truly great. From the New York Times:

“No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. He said it was his personal belief that “allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do.”

Admiral Mullen, were those remarks written beforehand? Because that’s an elegant and direct way to say what you said. Sure, one of your predecessors should have said it years ago. But you said it, it’s on the record, the process begins. Good.

This story wouldn’t be complete without a resounding shit sandwich served up by none other than John “Walnuts” McCain, who proved once again that he is woefully out of touch with everything, but specifically the 21st century.

As the hearing opened, the committee’s chairman, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, welcomed the abolition of the policy, saying it had never made sense to him. Its ranking Republican, Senator John McCain of Arizona, said that he was “deeply disappointed” and that the original rationale, endorsed by Congress in 1993, was as sound as ever.

On one thing, they agreed: many gay men and lesbians are serving honorably and effectively in the military today, despite a policy that has driven thousands of others out of the services. But Mr. Levin said the military should act in this matter as it has in others, as a force against discrimination. And Mr. McCain said the military culture was so different from civilian life that the rules for its members, too, must differ.

Mr. Levin cited an overwhelming view on the part of the public, as seen in polls, that the law should change. Mr. McCain said that a thousand retired admirals and generals had signed a petition against change, and that their views reflected the honest beliefs of military leaders as a whole, whatever Admiral Mullen’s personal view.

All other stupid things John McCain said aside (he’s the guy who said on the record, “I hate the gooks”), we’re particularly puzzled by what he thinks the signatures of one thousand retired admirals and generals should signify, because those retired admirals and generals are retired. And another thing: Probably none of them is a retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs. McCain presumably would have made that fact known.

Predictably, there’s Republican squawking about Mullen’s position. Rep. John Boehner (R-O-shut-up-hio), who served all of eight weeks — eight weeks! — in the Navy, said, “In the middle of two wars and in the middle of this giant security threat, why would we want to get into this debate?”

Because, and we’re quoting Adm. Mullen, the highest ranking person in the United States armed forces, “[A]llowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do.”

Now one could argue that Serena didn’t specifically say “I’m going to kill you,” and I’m no expert in physiology. I’m just guessing that a tennis ball blocking the windpipe could lead to death.

So now that we’re all well past that ugly moment in tennis history, here’s what Serena thinks of the whole thing via the New York Times.

Williams, who was making her first Grand Slam appearance since the profanity-laced outburst, said she believed the $92,000 fine was too severe, and suggested that it would have been less if she had not been a woman.

“I don’t know anyone who ever got fined like that, and people have said worse and done worse,” said Williams, who could have been suspended from playing here.

“I just thought it was a bit much, but that was that.”

No, actually. No one has ever said or done worse.

Williams said she was not making excuses for her bad behavior, and said she was trying to turn the incident into a positive by raising money for charities, including the victims of the earthquake in Haiti.

Still, the world’s top women’s player would not let it go.

“Ninety-two thousand dollars is a lot of money to fine someone,” she said. “I always said what I did wasn’t right, but I turned that around and I’m actually raising $92,000 to educate ladies, women, also for my school in Africa.”

Oh Serena, you are making excuses! When you suggest that the fine would be less if you weren’t a woman, that’s an excuse to talk about how you were wronged. What’s even better is how you use the whole event to talk about your Haitian relief program! Wow, you’re a swell person and we totally misjudged you!

Back to reality. We know that Serena Williams is one of the most overrated athletes ever, and if awards were given for being the biggest sports asshole, the sorest loser or the worst winner, she’d be right up there with Brett Favre. But to suggest that she’s been singled out and that the fine was, in her words, “a bit much,” is disingenuous and stupid. Take a look at Jeff Tarango’s Wimbledon outburst in 1995.

Without threatening to kill anyone, and not swearing once — once! — Tarango was fined $63,000 and couldn’t play in the next two Grand Slam events. That means no US Open and no Australian Open. And with inflation, his $63,000 is a pretty hefty goddamn fine. Especially when the highest ranking he ever made in singles was 42.

You’d better be glad you’re Serena Williams because your ranking, celebrity and big fat fucking mouth got you off easy. Seriously, you’re the only tennis player in the world who would have had such an easy go of this whole fiasco, for which you at least deserved to be banned from Grand Slam play for a year. And don’t forget the provision in the ATP ruling that reduces the fine by half if you play nice in the future.

Serena Williams: You’re a terrible person and sports will be better the moment you retire.